


Earl Harlan's Taste in Men, and Other Workplace Hazards

by youmockussir



Series: It's Only Awkward If You Let It Be [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Awkwardness, Humor, M/M, Spoilers for A Spy In The Desert but only the ones involving Telly the Barber, They're not married yet, the exes talk, we've all had it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23338741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youmockussir/pseuds/youmockussir
Summary: “Earl?” Cecil grins. “Earl, how are you! Long time no see!”Carlos looks up and sees a man. Oh. He knows this man. He knows this man intimately.Cecil seems to remember Carlos’s presence. “Carlos, this is Earl.” He gestures at the red-haired man.“Oh…!”“Uh, yes,” says Earl, scratching the back of his neck. “Carlos and I have, uh, we’ve met.”
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer, Carlos/Earl Harlan (past relationship), Earl Harlan/Cecil Palmer (past relationship)
Series: It's Only Awkward If You Let It Be [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678450
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	Earl Harlan's Taste in Men, and Other Workplace Hazards

**Author's Note:**

> This is a followup to the events of "Atomic Smorrebrod"
> 
> Content warnings: mention of alcohol, mention of blood

“And in college, I dated Sarah Sultan.” Cecil adds another tally to his finger count.

At a certain stage in any romantic relationship, there comes the “exes talk”. It’s not a particularly pleasant or unpleasant discussion. It is just something that arises from a current relationship between two adults who have experienced the world separately before living in it together. 

“Sarah Sultan, the smooth, fist-sized river rock?” Carlos isn’t sure he heard Cecil right.

“Yep.” Cecil sighs fondly, reminiscing. “Those were the days. Of course, she doesn’t hold a candle to you, Carlos-”

“Because she doesn’t have any hands?"

“-but she was completely untameable in the bedroom.”

“Huh.” Carlos tries to imagine how exactly _that_ would work, and absolutely can’t do it. 

“And then, a few years before I met you, I got back together with my high school sweetheart, Earl Harlan.”

“Oh?” 

“Yeah, that was nice for a while, but we just wanted different things, you know? It didn’t work out.”

“Hmm, I’m sorry,” says Carlos, even though he isn’t that sorry about it. He’s selfish that way.

“Nah, it was amicable enough.” Cecil shrugs. “As the old saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. Every lightning bolt has a golden trim. Every raindrop has a sapphire coating.” Carlos nods. 

“So that’s all of them! Your turn!”

“Oh! Ok!” Carlos frowns, trying to remember his childhood. He’s getting up there in age, if the ‘dignified’ gray hair at his temples has anything to say about it. 

“When I was in second grade, I kissed a girl on the playground and we pretended to date for a few weeks.”

“Awww, Carlos!” Cooed Cecil. “That’s adorable!”

“Yeah, I was a cute kid. Oh!” A waitress… slithers, for lack of a better word, over to the table with their appetizers. “Thank you.”

“Thank you.” Cecil murmurs in echo. 

“And then I dated these two guys in college. It was kind of a, a v-shaped thing? Like, I dated both of them, but they didn’t date each other?”

Cecil nods, “Yes, I did the readings you sent me.”

“Ok, good! Yeah, but then one guy, Enrique, graduated and moved away, and then Julian and I broke up over something petty. I can’t even remember what it was!”

“Memory can be tricky,” says Cecil. “Like, I can’t even remember how long I was nineteen for! I think it was _decades_.” He looks into the distance, eyes filled with fog. 

“Right.” Carlos takes a bite of antipasto. 

Cecil brings his wine glass up to his lips, and drains the entire glass. Incredibly. Slowly. 

He smacks his lips.

“So you broke up with Julian.”

“So I broke up with Julian!” continues Carlos. “And, in true undergrad fashion, I had a long string of one night stands to make up for it. So that was a fun time in my life.”

“Sounds like it,” Cecil wiggles his eyebrows. 

“And then,” Carlos blushes a little. “Okay, this is super embarrassing.”

At this, Cecil perks up considerably. “What?”

“When I first got to Night Vale, I was kind of lonely, and I hooked up with some random guy at a bar.”

“OMG,” Cecil says, verbally, out loud, like a teenager learning to speak after exclusively texting for three years. “Who was it?”

“I’m not telling you his name!” Carlos pokes his fork of salami at Cecil. “I don’t want you pulling a ‘Telly the Barber’ situation on some poor guy who had the misfortune of sleeping with me!”

“Okay, first of all, Telly banished himself to the desert.” Cecil reminds him.

“I’m sure your bullying didn’t help.”

“He cut you short bangs and shaved an asterisk into your sideburns! He deserved to be bullied a little!”

Carlos shudders, remembering how many hats he had to buy because of _that_ incident. “That’s fair.” He takes a swig of his blood wine. “And then I started dating you, honey! What a great decision,” He teases. 

“Yeah, it was. I’ve been told I am quite handsome.”

Carlos snorts. “This is true. And _very_ charming.”

“Aww, shush.” Cecil waves his hand around.

“This is nice,” says Carlos after a moment. “You’re good at picking restaurants.”

This is true. Cecil knows the dining scene in Night Vale better than anyone. He knows where’s hot, where’s not, and where will get you killed. On one particularly memorable occasion, Carlos was tasked with choosing the restaurant, and it led to the couple inadvertently fighting off a wild pack of geese in the forest and then eating leftovers at home. Never again.

“Thanks, honey,” Cecil’s eyes crinkle in a smile. 

They’re sitting in the dimly lit dining room, with just a glimpse of the bar through the doorway. Through the doorway comes a man in a chef’s coat, tastefully splashed with what Carlos assumes to be blood. He is carrying two plates of steak. 

“Two manticore steaks- oh. Hey Cecil.”

“Earl?” Cecil grins. “Earl, how are you! Long time no see!”

Carlos looks up and sees a man. Oh. He knows this man. He knows this man _intimately._

“Oh, you know,” says Earl, looking very much like he wants to bolt. “Same old, same old.”

Cecil seems to remember Carlos’s presence. “Carlos, this is Earl.” He gestures at the red-haired man. 

“Oh…!” Carlos remembers their earlier conversation. “Earl, your childhood best friend?” His voice pitches up outside of his control, and he clears his throat. His eyes dart between the two men. 

“Uh, yes,” says Earl, scratching the back of his neck. “Carlos and I have, uh, we’ve met.”

“Oh?" Cecil tilts his head. “When did you two meet?"

“Oh, I’ve, uh, I’ve gotta go back to the kitchen. It was great seeing you. Cecil.” Earl nods. “You too, Carlos.” And, as sincere as he sounds, he turns squarely on his heel and walks a little too quickly back into the kitchen. 

“Huh.” Cecil frowns just a little. “That was weird.”

“Uh,” Carlos says. 

“So!” Cecil perks up, excited about the novel connection in his social web. “You never told me you’d met Earl!”

“Um,” Carlos says. 

“Were you doing _science_ in his kitchen?”

“You could say that-”

“Or was it a scouts thing? Did you do experiments together?”

“Cecil-”

“Or did he give you something to eat?”

“Cecil!” and Cecil stops rambling. “Cecil, do you remember how I told you that I was with someone when I first got to Night Vale?”

Cecil’s eyebrows scrunch together. “Yeah, why?”

Oh, Cecil was _so dense_ sometimes. 

“Um, apparently that person was Earl.”

Cecil stared at him.

“That guy.” Carlos gestures uselessly toward the kitchen. 

Cecil blinks, once.

“You slept with Earl?”

“Yes.”

“ _My_ Earl?”

“Well, yours and mine.”

“Huh.”

Cecil takes a bite of his steak, pondering. He stops.

“Damn, this steak is good.” He gestures at Carlos’s plate with his fork. “Seriously, try it.”

Carlos does. 

“How was it?”

“You’re right, this is _delicious.”_ Carlos chews enthusiastically (and, if Cecil is being honest, a little loudly). 

“No, I meant,” Cecil tilts his head inward. “How was it with Earl?”

Carlos blushes. “It was fine.” He thinks about that evening. “I mean, _obviously_ I didn’t know he was your ex.” Carlos squints, trying to recall the conversation they had that night. “He was _not_ over you.”

At this, Cecil raises an eyebrow. “Really? That’s surprising.”

“Is it?” Carlos asks. “You’re pretty memorable.” Cecil smiles, and reaches for Carlos’s hand. 

“But yeah, he kept talking about this guy who he used to be with and how it made him sad that the guy wanted this other- oh my god.”

“What?” Cecil leans in, a little desperate for the gossip, especially now that it involves him. “What is it?”

“The guy he was talking about was.. me. It was _me_. Huh.”

Cecil frowns. “Okay, you’ve lost me.”

“So Earl was all ‘I’m sad because of this breakup’ and then he was all ‘my ex keeps talking about his crush on this other man where I can hear him’ and Ceec, I was the other guy! And you were the ex! And you were talking about me on the radio! Whoa.”

Carlos has to think about this later. There are a lot of layers at play. 

“That’s wild.” Cecil takes a sip of his drink. 

“Yeah.”

There is a pause.

“Earl has good taste.”

They burst into uncontrollable giggles. What a crazy night.   
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Earl’s timeline is a little off in this but im lazy and wanted to make a plot work because I wanted to push something out while im working on my longer orbiting human circus fic. enjoy.
> 
> I also kind of wanted to set it up for cecearlos but the fic didn't really go in that direction. Maybe a second follow up. This plotline will never end.


End file.
